


Kintsugi

by hannahuwu



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Aroace Seonghwa?, Hongjoong has a falcon named Avi, Hongjoong is a falcon master, I like clam chowder, M/M, Pirateez yeehaw, Pirates, Seonghwa is the best platonic soulmate you could ever ask for, Wooyoung and San ask the hyung line to take their time bc they’re trying to have sex pls, caves !!, hongjoong is sad, there is blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28770861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahuwu/pseuds/hannahuwu
Summary: Hongjoong would rather feel pain than nothing at all, even if it meant feeling like a million little pieces. He needed to be their captain.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Kang Yeosang, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong, Jeong Yunho/Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Kintsugi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hongbabey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongbabey/gifts), [sxgxls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxgxls/gifts).



> for moss and tal, some of the best friends i could ever ask for. ily both to bits and would drive a rapier through people if you need me to :)

Hongjoong sighs as he checks his watch for what felt like the millionth time that day. _Still no sign of Yunho._ He’d been waiting in the bar for over an hour, nitpicking at the clam chowder he’d ordered half an hour into sitting there since he felt bad. A third of it was gone now. He chewed on his nails, anxiously expecting company. But nothing had come. Their last conversation was brief, a mere line exchanged between the two. It felt like it had been ages since they’d really sat down to talk about, well, anything at all. 

The first month went great, after he asked Yunho out. In fact, they were so stupidly in love, it was gag-worthy. _An absolutely love struck idiot,_ Yeosang had called him, laughing. It was a joke. But with a more serious face, softer, Jongho had told him something he would come to overlook.

_“Two mentally unstable people dating each other. Sounds a lot like a recipe for disaster unless both of you are actively getting help.”_

They weren’t. Yunho was, but Hongjoong wasn’t. Time was precious, and he didn’t have much of it. It would be better spent in his quarters, trying to analyse a new map. Maybe it was his fault they weren’t talking as much anymore. 

But was it really? After all the times Hongjoong had talked first, when he had tried to continue a conversation. Wasn’t Yunho the one who’d break away? _“We don’t talk anymore,”_ he’d said one day, taking a break from communicating with the merfolk to seek Yunho, who was back in his own quarters. 

_“We do,”_ the other had responded, keeping an obvious distance from his captain. _“You’re just busy.”_

 _“I’ve always been busy,”_ Hongjoong frowned, pausing. _“But we still talked a lot. We don’t talk anymore, like we used to do.”_

“Sir?” Hongjoong’s head snapped up to look at the hostess. “There’s someone here to see you.” His heart leapt. _Yunho was here! He did care, he did love him—_

“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa softly spoke, sitting in the seat across him. Hongjoong’s face fell. 

“Seonghwa,” he responded, throat clenching. 

“He’s not coming, he left earlier to do something else.” 

“Oh.” 

“Should we pack away the chowder?”

“I suppose so,” Hongjoong smiled, his facade cracking ever so slightly. _It hurt._ Seonghwa nodded, waving a waitress over to pack the rest of the meal away. “Why are you here?”

Seonghwa cleared his throat. “I felt like you weren’t going to leave unless someone came to fetch you.”

“So why are _you_ here?” Hongjoong leaned forward, propping his arms on the table. _It was still hurting._

“Because I’m your friend, your first mate, Hongjoong. And I knew you wouldn’t leave until someone came to fetch you. Now come on, let’s get some fresh air. It smells like stale beer in here,” Seonghwa scrunched his nose. “You should’ve chosen a better place for a date.” Hongjoong giggled. “Seriously, Hongjoong.” Seonghwa chuckled, urging him to stand up, reaching his hand out to take. 

Hongjoong knows the way back the ship by heart. They’ve docked here so many times, he could almost call it home. _Right, left, left, shuffle down the stairs, right—_

_Wait, shuffle down the stairs?_

Hongjoong stopped, gripping Seonghwa’s hand. “This is the wrong way, Hwa.” 

“No, this is the right way,” the raven-haired man grinned. “To where I want us to go.” 

Hongjoong chuckles. “Then, what are we waiting for?”

“That’s the captain I know.” 

By the time they make it to the cave, it’s dark enough that all the stars look down on them with more intensity than they usually do. They’re just so bright. So bright, that Hongjoong doesn’t even realise it when the tears start to fall. Doesn’t realise that he’s crouched down, slamming his fists against the cold rocks below his feet. His knuckles bleed. It hurts. It hurts but it doesn’t hurt as much as it does when he thinks about how Yunho probably doesn’t love him anymore. 

“Go for the sand, captain. We both know you wouldn’t forgive me if I let you break both your hands today.” Seonghwa says, sinking down beside him. 

“I hate everything.” Hongjoong groans, striking the rocks one last time before he unties the scarf around his waist to wipe the metallic scented liquid off. 

“I know,” Seonghwa pats his head. “Do you want to talk about it now?” 

“Not really.”

“Am I allowed to say what I want?” 

“Yes.”

“You’re hurting yourself, Hongjoong.” 

“I know.”

“This isn’t healthy.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

Hongjoong pauses. _Why indeed._ Many reasons. The cons of being in this relationship was that he was always feeling immense anxiety, and that he was always questioning it. The pros?

“I feel loved when we talk.”

“And how much do you talk?”

“Not a lot.”

“Is it worth it, then?”

Hongjoong says nothing. 

“Hongjoong?” 

He sighs, sagging against Seonghwa. It feels so right to have his head in Seonghwa’s lap. Seonghwa raises a hand to trace out the tattoos on his captain’s arm, the way he knows calms Hongjoong down. “I just—“ he trails off when he sees his hawk, Avi, flying in the distance  
heading towards them. There’s a roll of paper in her claws as she lands, making her way over to Hongjoong. 

“Falconry pays off, I suppose.” Seonghwa laughs. The vibrations make Hongjoong feel fuzzy inside. “Who’s it from?” 

Hongjoong prays silently for it to be from Yunho. Prays, with so much fervency, you’d think he was religious. 

The disappointment on his face is probably obvious. 

“San and Wooyoung?” Seonghwa suggests. Hongjoong nods. “Hongjoong?”

Hongjoong looks up at the male from where he’s almost dozing off, feeling the safest he’s felt since he’d began to lose Yunho. 

“You don’t want to hear this right now, and I understand. But this isn’t healthy. Maybe it worked when you weren’t friends, but now it isn’t. Yunho could have mistaken his feelings for love.”

Hongjoong turns away, beckoning Avi closer. Her feathers are soft, he thinks, as he gently strokes her wing. Almost, it seems like Avi pities him. She would know, she’d lived with him in his quarters, watching as he broke down every so often from the weight of his anxiety. She’d seen him weeping after Yunho came back on one of their anniversaries with a hickey on his neck too high to hide, only to bite down on his lower lip until it bled to regain sanity. He needed to get a grip. It was an accident. Yunho had been too intoxicated to know, too drunk to understand until it had been done. He had a family, a crew to be in charge of. He wasn’t supposed to be weak. He was a leader, their leader. It didn’t matter if things were different, that Yunho was no longer the person he’d be fragile with. 

“You don’t have to hide everything from me, Hongjoong. I love you, dammit, and I care about you.” Seonghwa huffed, pinching down a little. _Curse his brain for somehow making him talk out loud._ “Not romantically, Hongjoong, but as more than a family. I’d kill for you if you gave the word.”

 _Why am I still in a relationship with Yunho? It’s obviously hurting me,_ Hongjoong ponders again as Seonghwa continues to talk. His mind isn’t focusing on the words, isn’t thinking. _Seonghwa,_ he wants to say, wants to call out. _I’d been hurt because I’m in love with somebody that used to love me,_ _and in denial of being in love with a man who does not feel any form of romantic love for anybody._

Hongjoong does not say this out loud. There’s too much emptiness in his chest. A void, with a million little pieces at the bottom of an endless pit. A shard hangs at the top, hopelessly waiting to be fixed, perhaps as he had first taught Yunho to fix broken things. When Yunho first came, he’d brought a mug with him. Broken, but a mug. Broken into three. _“It was my father’s,”_ he’d said. _“He didn’t leave a lot behind.”_

 _“We can fix it, if you want.” With gold,_ Hongjoong had left out. Yunho gawked when he dragged them into town the next time they docked, headed for where he’d normally get their swords sharpened. _“Kintsugi,”_ he’d taught Yunho. An art of mending cracks without hiding them, but making them beautiful. He wished now he could take his own philosophy. But right now, Hongjoong would rather feel pain than nothing at all. He would take it. He had to take it. He’d been taking it for more than a decade. 

“We have to go now, I believe.” Seonghwa spoke finally, after he’d finished talking and the waves were becoming increasingly louder. Avi made a noise, climbing onto Hongjoong’s shoulder. The leather pads underneath ensured he wouldn’t feel the sharpness of her claws, he assured Seonghwa when he winced a little at the new tears in Hongjoong’s shirt. 

He trudges back to ship, squeezing Seonghwa’s hand once for support. More emotional than physical, but squeeze he does. In the distance, he hears laughter that echoes with too much familiarity. His ears catch it, but his hearing is sharper than most.

It’s Yunho, and it’s Mingi. 

And they’re holding hands. 

And they’d kissed. 

Seonghwa doesn’t seem to notice when Hongjooong falls behind a few steps. The sand is too soft, and their movements too silent. 

Seonghwa does notice when Avi shrieks at the sound of the revolver going off. 

Hongjoong drops. 

He was wrong. 

_Perhaps, it was better to feel nothing at all than to feel pain,_ he tells Seonghwa as his first mate rushes to his side, cradling his head, trying to stop the flow. 

“Let me selfish this once, Seonghwa.” His voice cracks.

_“Please.”_

**Author's Note:**

> ,,,uh sorry this was an emotional vomit that i felt the need to purge after reading hongbabey’s TABOMH which !!! you should read oml it’s so good the talented bean they are. please check out sxgxl’s works too for delicious content :D
> 
> please leave a comment if you’d like me to (try) write a second part 🥺💕


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